Wilson Adekumola
The Special Adviser on Media to the President, Femi Adesina, has urged consumers to patronise locally produced goods, especially in the agricultural sector.
He stated that more citizens will be financially encouraged when locally manufactured goods are patronized.
He made this call at a one-day seminar/exhibition organised by Zakclair Investment Ltd in affiliation with the Central Bank of Nigeria and Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board in Abuja on Thursday.
Adesina explained at the event dubbed, ‘Restoration towards Ensuring Preference and Consumption of Domestic Agro-Allied Products’ that no nation can improved its production capacity when its economy is based on imported products.
The Special Assistant to the President on New Media, Tolu Ogunlesi, who represented the Special Adviser on Media, noted that most developed nations of the world are those whose economies are focus on local production of goods.
He also stated that the unbridled importation of products is effect on the country’s foreign exchange reserve.
He said, “We must also be willing to innovate with our local products in ways that can get us a wider audience. Instead of expending scarce resources importing goods and services, we can channel them to creating jobs for people. We need to believe more in the value of what is indigenous to us, as a people.
“When we consume locally made products, there will be less pressure on our foreign exchange. In the same breath, the value addition that happens locally means jobs. The economic value of consuming locally made by goods is in all the jobs that will be created.
“I think that with the kind of market that we have in Nigeria, 200 million people, you can see there’s a lot that we can do with domestic products.”
The Executive Secretary of Agricultural Research Council of Nigeria (ARCN), Prof. Garba Sharabutu, who delivered the keynote address earlier, charged stakeholders to encourage the efforts to drive the consumption of made-in-Nigeria products, saying “we need to take it from words to action.”
At the event, the CEO of Zakclair Investment Ltd, Adelabu Abdulrazak, stressed that with the country’s dwindling economy, there is the need to direct attention to preference and consumption of locally-made products.
“Consequently, we believe there is a need for a discourse in this aspect of our national life with the aim to infuse patriotism, encourage policies that tackle this life-style, reorientate our citizens and massively stimulate the growth of our economy,”
